megalomaniac wrote:the Xeno or Atmega8 (Xeno clone) can be upgraded/downgraded (or initial programming for Atmega) using the various xenoflash.dol's included in the source..
In order to put the microcontroller in program(write) mode, RESET pin (1) must have constant contact with GND during the write process.

The printed letters "XENO" are in contact with RESET therefore connecting any of those letters with GND will put the chip in program mode. The letters are quite big and make for easy soldering of a wire lead. Also GND can found anywhere on the GC, such as the metal cage around the optical drive which also makes for easy soldering.

Those are great news indeed, the problem is that I don't have skills now, my skills are better than in 2006. But the mess is there, some pads have been lifted up and it will be harder to find alternative points. Soldering to the O letter of Xeno should be pretty easy.
You mean the metal cage with holes that attaches to the GameCube disc drive can be used as a ground connection as well?

megalomaniac, how did you flash the .hex files? The only two ways I can see right now are to compile them into a XenoFlasher or to desolder the board and use an Atmel programming tool. As far as I know, the Xeno doesn't have a software bootloader programmed for receiving bytes any other way. What's your secret?

Thanks mega, I am familiar with Atmel's Bootloader and fairly confident I understand how the XenoFlash program works. My question was directed to your testing of the Hex Files included in the source file.

megalomaniac wrote:Ive flashed my chip with everything i can find in the source....here are my findings

I don't have an actual Xeno but technically, homemade makes no difference if done correctly.
With my homemade board it us easier for me to test, verify, and develop.
FYI:
An actual xeno will require a simple board mod to allow communication to both the GC and a serial/parallel programmer.
More info to come on these required modifications...

Last edited by megalomaniac on Fri Sep 23, 2011 10:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

emu_kidid wrote: beer is like WD40 for megalomaniac's brain, gets the gears moving

Has anyone begun porting the XenoFlash code to libogc? I would like to begin this task but don't want to replicate anyone's work. I've gotten the Hello World example app in libogc to compile and run, so I know I'm not far off from this goal!

emu_kidid, do you know if The Author would object to forking his code into a code management system for open source development? If so, under what license should we develop it?

Speaking of forking, I am considering forking this discussion thread into a more appropriate forum than "News". Maybe GC/Wii development?

All that to say my end goal is to be able to hold Start on boot and have my XenoGC boot a specific file name from the SDGecko.

dantheman2865, sounds good about forking the code - it's no longer in production these days anyway. Probably good to put all the code up into googlecode or something but label it as open sourced drive patches /etc..

Thank you for this big news !
I would share with you my design for the boards.
There are made with Sprint Layout (a nice software for designing PCB) and the files can surely be sent to manufacturing in their format (.lay).
If you found the software you can export gerber + drilling files and such from it.

So here they are:

ps: I've made a file for each of the three combinaison: DIP / DIP + ISP / QFP + ISP
And the simplest one (the DIP) is only a single face PCB.
And the QFP one has its resistors mades to be able to put some throughole reisitors or SMD one.
And all the componments & values are noted on the PCB, as well as th connection points on the motherboard !

I've uploaded a picture with the three design side by side if you want to see... ("modèles côte à côte.png")

...but think about this:
Xeno requires drive proper initialization before it can upload its drive code..
This means Xeno requires a DVD in the drive, so why not use a swiss DVD? You only need to burn 1 copy because once you load swiss from DVD then you can always load a newer version of swiss from SD

emu_kidid wrote: beer is like WD40 for megalomaniac's brain, gets the gears moving

I have an NTSC Gamecube with a Xeno GC v2.0 with the PAL 1.05 shell. The shell is useless, so I'd like to flash it with an earlier firmware. Assuming the Xeno is put into reset/programming mode, can this be done booting with SDLoad (or Swiss) on DVD-R and flashing the firmware from the SD Media Launcher?

Got 1.01 flashed using Swiss after half a dozen attempts. The first try looked like it worked perfectly but rendered the Xeno GC inoperative (no LEDs), so I went searching in vain for the serial programmer I built a few years ago. Thankfully I also have a Viper GC Extreme, so I was able to use that to boot Swiss and run the flasher.dol. After a few more tries with errors, it finally worked. Not sure why flashing was so problematic.

Can someone make a version of swiss that will load in place of the credits.dol or the shell.dol? I was reading earlier posts and it said it was possible. Itd be very helpful to launch swiss from the sd gecko using the xenogc or as a .dol in general. Any help would be appreciated :3

noobcube wrote:Got 1.01 flashed using Swiss after half a dozen attempts. The first try looked like it worked perfectly but rendered the Xeno GC inoperative (no LEDs), so I went searching in vain for the serial programmer I built a few years ago. Thankfully I also have a Viper GC Extreme, so I was able to use that to boot Swiss and run the flasher.dol. After a few more tries with errors, it finally worked. Not sure why flashing was so problematic.

noobcube wrote:Got 1.01 flashed using Swiss after half a dozen attempts. The first try looked like it worked perfectly but rendered the Xeno GC inoperative (no LEDs), so I went searching in vain for the serial programmer I built a few years ago. Thankfully I also have a Viper GC Extreme, so I was able to use that to boot Swiss and run the flasher.dol. After a few more tries with errors, it finally worked. Not sure why flashing was so problematic.

Please tell me how you did this so i can put swiss on my xenogc ;-;

It has been quite a while since I flashed the XenoGC. However, what I did was use Swiss to flash the
XenoGC with XenoGC firmware, not Swiss. I do not think it is possible to flash Swiss on to the XenoGC.